Gaza doc named Norway's person of year

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Mads Gilbert, 67,whose day job is head physician and anaesthesiologist as the University Hospital of North Norway, spent more than fifty days treating many of the 11,000 injured in this summer’s conflict.

Gilbert was vocal in his criticism of Israel during the war, describing the country’s actions as “state terrorism at the highest levels.” Israel later banned the doctor from Gaza. The ban was officially for security reasons, but Gilbert himself claimed the ban was due to his comments about the war. Israel denied reports that the ban was for life.

He gave graphic accounts to international media of the situation in Gaza’s hospitals, describing how civilians were “maimed and torne apart”. In an open letter to the Lancet medical journal, he and a number of other doctors said they were “appalled by the military onslaught on civilians in Gaza under the guise of punishing terrorists.”

Gilbert’s is a controversial figure in Norway, where he is considered to be on the far-left fringe of politics. Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 he said he supported terror attacks against the US, saying western foreign policy justified them.

http://www.thelocal.no/20141219/gaza-doc-named-norways-person-of-year

[King_David]

1. Dr Gilbert's view on the 9-11 terrorist attacks :

Gilbert is on the left-wing fringe in Norway. In 2001, he told Dagbladet that the 9/11 attacks in the US were a result of decades of Western foreign policy and that he supported terrorist attacks against the US in that “context”.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-bars-outspoken-norwegian-doctor-mads-gilbert-from-entering-the-gaza-strip-9862340.html

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2. Yes, the OP mentions that.

Apparently that was not enough to sway the tabloid.